At 33 Higher Cambridge Street looking for Bowes famous 5/11 trousers

I like this picture because the more you look at it the more you are drawn into the early decades of the last century.

We are on Higher Cambridge Street at one the shops of James Bowes Ltd.

Number 35 Higher Cambridge Street was the second of the shops opened by James Bowes who had begun his business in 1880 on Oldham Road in Newton Heath. 

Within three years of starting his business he had expanded into the neighbouring shop and later still opened this one in Chorlton on Medlock.

And as that century rolled on the firm opened other shops one of which was on Alexandra Road,* finally moving to Stockport at the end of the 20^th century.

James Bowes was born in Hulme in 1839. His father described himself variously as an engineer and a maker up.  

The family were still in Hulme in 1851 but James had moved to Newton Heath by 1881 living with his wife and children above the shop at 286 Oldham Road.

But today I want to concentrate on our shop on Higher Cambridge Street.

Like the family business in Newton James Bowes Ltd in Chorlton on Medlock occupied two shops.

They were as the sign announces “General Salesmen” dealing in anything and everything from clothes to alarm clocks, from blankets to boy’s knickers.

And if you were unsure about what was on sale, there hanging from the side of the shop was a line of carpets and rugs while the windows were filled with merchandise and hand written signs.

This after all was that period when every shop keepers motto was “pile’em high and sell ‘em cheap."

Look closely and there is a window full of “WATCHES AND ALBERTS.”

My favourite has to be “BOWES FAMOUS 5/11 TROUSERS 5/11 TROUSERS POPULAR ALL OVER THIS CITY", with the added hard sell of poster inviting you to " THINK THIS OVER."

But despite all of these goods the other serious side of the business was the  pawnbroker’s which in the years before the Great War flourished where ever incomes were uncertain and where there was a need to resort to ready cash in exchange for pawning a personal article.

In 1911 the shop was run by Wilfred Bowes, who was 26 years old and one of James’s sons. 

Now talking to Paul who is the present owner of the shop in Stockport the company continued to expand and so I guess in the fullness of time I should be able to find out if Wilfred’s brothers Edgat and James also went into the family business.

For now I shall just return to that shop on Higher Cambridge Street with its shirts at 4/11 and its Bowes Alarm Clocks “Now reduced to 2/11.”

I went looking for the place recently and of course it has long gone.

Picture; 33-35 Higher Cambridge Street courtesy of Paul Bowes

 *A ghost sign, a pawnbrokers and a row of abandoned properties,  http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2014-02-13T03:30:00Z&max-results=7&start=14&by-date=false